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Even though I love what I do, I haven’t been able to find the “perfect formula” to enjoy my job as I wish I could. I must admit: one thing is to love something and another thing is to really enjoy it. Where is the subtle difference?

When I started thinking about this topic I found it hard to come up with the reason why people and I find it so hard to enjoy the day to day work that we do. I thought that maybe it was because I worried too much about the future or all that has to be done. Then, I thought it was about finding the perfect team and the ideal workplace. But our relationship to our job is similar to a romantic relationship: there aremany things, motivations, dreams, and emotions involved that it is not easy to pinpoint the elements that compose that so called “perfect formula”.

There are romantic relationships that are heavy and complicated even though they contain a great amount of love, they require that the people involved carry a heavy load that can be overwhelming. The same could happen at work: a lot of love, but too much weight.

When it comes to feeling more relaxed at work and not because of this have less love for what we do, each person is affected and motivated by different things.

I will mention six things that I have experienced. Maybe these can help you avoid heavy feelings at work:

- Fear to delegate: When you are in a position in which you feel you can control everything, you start doubting other people’s ability and talents. I heard a famous entrepreneur once say that you should always choose people who do things better than you. Believe me, it works.

- Desperately seeking perfection: At times we demand so much from ourselves but we don’t even realize it. We spend our life trying to improve our weaknesses that we forget that no one is perfect and that we should actually be focusing on our strengths, instead of our weaknesses.

- A full agenda: The workplace is full of unexpected situations. Appointments come out of nowhere, meetings take double the time expected, longphone calls, urgent emails, etc. Separating some minutes or maybe some hours a week to deal with those unforeseen events will help reduce our stress levels.

- Forgetting to “start over” when required: Coming back to our love story; just like with boyfriends, it is difficult to have a healthy work environment if we don’t forgive and let go of lists of complaints we may have about certain people or certain situations. Whether it was someone’s mistake or ours, who doesn’t like second opportunities?

- Indecision: Calm, cool and collected; that is how we need to be when it comes to decision time at the workplace. We need to do things at the right time, taking advantage of the opportunities that come our way.

-Jealousy at work: If there is something that can take our energy and peace it is jealousy. Everywhere we look there could be a source of jealousy: higher positions, better pay, more attractive looks, an exciting bonus. It doesn’t matter where we look at there is always the possibility to compare. Why not change that jealousy into inspiration?

Only you can lighten your day to day to really enjoy what you do. No more heavy work load!